Leaving Faith Behind

By Jeffrey Olsson

In the first nine chapters of this book Jeff Olsson answers those who have asked why he would want to leave a faith community such as the Anglican Church of Canada and Christianity. A letter to my curious friends is Jeffs personal story where he explains how faith is not always a virtue when those who choose to believe do so at the expense of others.
Chapters ten through twenty eight give a historical perspective on atheism and present a rational world view. Later chapters include a criticism of Augustinian and Papal views on morality and offer humanism as a viable alternative.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 17, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462826537

Jeffrey Olsson

Jeff Olsson was an Anglican priest for ten years before he left the ministry. He loves to write about topics that examine the fringes between science and religion. He is father to two beautiful daughters, a husband who loves his wife and an educator who thinks life long learning is the key to happiness. Jeff tells it like he sees it and loves to hear the opinion of others. He is currently the president of the Humanist Association of Manitoba and calls himself an atheist.

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Copyright © 2009 by Jeffrey Olsson.

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Contents

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

(12)

(13)

(14)

(15)

(16)

(17)

(18)

(19)

(20)

(21)

(22)

(23)

(24)

(25)

(25)

(26)

(27)

APPENDIX 1

APPENDIX 2

APPENDIX 3

REFERENCES

 (1)

A Letter to My Curious Friends

Many of you have asked why I would want to leave a faith community such as the Anglican Church of Canada. The truth of the matter is that I had contemplated leaving long in advance of actually doing so. The intention of this letter is simply to explain why I left. This is my personal story, and the message I tell in this story is deeply meaningful to me.

Some people, even some of my friends, have started to make up their own reasons as to why I left the Church, none of which are based on any sort of fact. My intention in writing this letter is to explain my personal reasons. This is not to attack the Christian faith; however, I will be frank and honest, as I had good reason to leave the church behind. I will also present a rationale that explains why it is so important that I do not return to Christianity. If you have trouble with this type of thinking, and I know some of you will, I suggest that you do not read this letter. Put it down.

Before I left the church I spoke with my closest friends and explained the troubles I was having with what I saw going on. I thought very carefully about how to reconcile my differences of opinion but I could not see how to bridge the gap. When I was finally in a position to see the system of belief adhered to by people within the church as the root of the problem, it didn’t take me very long to see what I had to do. So I left.

In my letter of resignation I stated it to my Bishop like this

I have given many hours of thought to my role within the Anglican Church of Canada. I have considered and reconsidered whether I should return to St. Aidan’s or if I should carry on as a priest at all. During my time off I have identified three issues at the centre of my discomfort with the Anglican Communion. The first is my own faith in God. The second is the same sex [marriage] issue. The third is the manner in which the leadership of this institution handles conflict, including the residential schools issue. Since these issues are not easily separated, I will explain in detail.

Faith in God seems like a no-brainer to many people, but not for me. In fact, it has not always been easy for me to call myself a Christian. Perhaps this explains why I sought out increasing amounts of education and responsibility within the church. As I look back, I see that I did this to create for myself a Christian Reality. I also did this, in part, because it made an easy fit with my family and friends. Please believe me when I say that this reasoning fits well with the motivations I have felt. In years past, I spent many evenings and weekends, preparing sermons, counseling, teaching in classrooms and studying. As time went on, I began to feel quite competent about my abilities. I felt I could explain things well. My ability to believe increased with this competence. However, during my quiet times I still wondered if a loving God was a reality, especially in the world that we live in, including what happened in the residential schools.

I became a Christian when I was only a child, at 12 years of age. I encouraged my father and mother to come to church and ultimately this lead to their involvement in the Christian community. When I first became a Christian it was because I sincerely believed it when I was told that God loves me. A few years later, when I reconsidered my decision for logical reasons, one of my close friends reminded me about why I should be afraid to leave.

It’s an incredible price to pay, he said, eternal damnation, there is no end to it and yet the solution is so simple, all we have to do is believe and trust in God, it’s so simple

At the time the risk seemed too great, I cowered and retreated. I stopped questioning the validity of my faith. I lived in a remote northern town and I had no more information to go on than that offered by the Christian community.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I knew people who were atheistic, but they offered no real arguments to me. Had they offered an argument that was stronger than the wonderful feelings of security and comfort offered to me by the church I would have reconsidered my faith again. I carried on in the church as a happy and enthusiastic member, and considered God to be a reality that was a challenge to be understood. I viewed seeking God as a worthwhile endeavor.

 (2)

Realization

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.

—Thomas Edison (1847-1931), in Columbian magazine

In my late 20’s I attended diocesan ministry training to prepare for the priesthood and I was ordained and appointed rector of my own small parish in northern Manitoba when I was 32. 5 years later when I had moved to Winnipeg I was appointed to the position of honorary assistant to the rector of another parish in the diocese of Rupertsland, I felt my spiritual world slowly begin to crumble.

In Winnipeg I faced criticism from other clergy on petty matters, some of the parishioners jumped in to help criticize. I no longer felt competent. I remember one communion service where, I was almost paralyzed, afraid to make a mistake in procedure because the rector was so particular. I had seen him openly criticize others in front of large groups of people, and I did not want that to happen to me.

It was not long before I began to question the validity of my calling again. Was I really meant for this ministry? At first I questioned my own calling and competence but later on I began to question the existence of a personal God. As I watched the news I wondered, How can such awful things happen in a world where a loving God is present?. Why won’t God intervene?

As I began to question God’s existence I felt the need to question the validity of scripture and the identity of Jesus Christ. Did Jesus really perform miracles? Or was Jesus like one of today’s charlatan ministers who prey on people’s credulity? Images of Benny Hinn’s TV ministry flashed through my mind. Is this really as good as it gets?

Without a real God who works as creator and maintainer of this world everything else is up in the air. Christian faith is revealed as a wishful creation of humankind. Could it be that Christianity is nothing more than a cultural phenomenon?

An ancient Philosopher named Epicurus (BC 341-270) summed up my problem in this manner:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then where does evil come from?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

 (3)

Residential Schools

Sunday School: A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.—H.L. Mencken (1880-1956),

editor and critic, in A Menken Chrestomathy

While I worked up north I was painfully aware of the residential schools issue in which aboriginal children were taken from their homes and sent off to be scrubbed and shorn, educated and converted to the ways of mainstream Christian society of the 1800’s-1960’s. I worked with a number of families affected by this program, counseling them as a priest would. It often amazed me that they attended church at all. Our church had a file with pictures of students from our area that had been sent to schools as far away as Prince Albert Saskatchewan, or Dauphin Manitoba. Both schools were approximately 800 kilometers away from where the children’s families lived at the time. In some cases they were sent against the parents wishes, as Canadian law demanded this schooling for aboriginal students.

I found myself deeply moved by their stories of abuse and prayed with them; I asked God to help them find healing and peace. As I heard their testimony it created deep conflicts within me. How could a loving God allow this to happen, especially at the hands of Christians? Since I was much younger than any of the residential school victims in Gillam I did not appear to offer the same threat as some of the older clergy did. I openly admitted the churches fault for failing to protect them from abuse. I was also open to new ways of thinking and presented God as a loving and compassionate spirit who understood what it was like to suffer. Some of those who were abused seemed to accept my testimony.

By the time I had moved to Winnipeg the lawsuits against the Canadian Government and the Anglican Church of Canada had formally begun. I witnessed, first hand, the reaction of the southern clergy as we were forced to institute restitution. At one of our diocesan meetings where over a hundred clergy and senior laity met an on annual basis, a small number of the clergy openly questioned whether or not the church was actually at fault for its role in the residential schools program. One priest described the church as a scapegoat for